War to the Knife

"What astonishing infantry a race like this would furnish!" thought Massinger. "Amid these forests, reasonably drilled and armed, in a guerilla war they could stand against the best troops in the world! Sheltered by these ancient woods, the breast-high bracken, these thickets impervious to all men but themselves, what chance would disciplined troops have against them? I hope to Heaven that we may never have to war with them à l'outrance. A succession of skirmishes would not matter so much, but a prolonged war would be one of the most expensive, and in some respects disastrous, on record."

He was recalled from these reflections by the voice of the guide, who had fallen back, and stood at some short distance, awaiting an opportunity to speak.

"I have halted the party," he said, "for we have no great distance to go, and may travel in a leisurely manner. We shall soon have our first sight of Taupo and commence to open out the hot lake country, with all the wonders of which you have heard."

"I am not sorry," said Massinger; "for though nothing could be more to my taste than our present form of journeying, yet I must confess to feeling impatient to behold these marvels that are in every one's mouth. I hope I shall not be disappointed."

"If so, you will be the first to confess it," said Warwick. "I have seen them many times, but they always fill me with fresh wonder and admiration. Nothing, in some respects, is equal to them in the world, I believe. 'See Rotomahana and die,' may well be said."

"When I do see it, it will be well described. Between Erena and yourself, I shall lose no part of legend or tradition."

"She is far better at the legendary business than I am," said Warwick. "She has such a wonderful memory, and knows all the old tales and waiatas by heart. I tell her she should write a pukapuka about the place and the people. One is just as strange as the other."

"I think I must," said the subject of their conversation, who had now approached, after concluding a colloquy with the women of the expedition. "It seems hard that so many of these legends should be lost. When I was a child, they used to be sung and repeated at every camp fire. Now they are on the way to be forgotten. My father was always promising to make a collection of them, but they strayed into 'By-and-by Street, which leads to the House of Never.'"

Massinger smiled. "I know that street myself, I must confess; but while I live in your country it shall be tapu. The land of Maui is the place, and this year of grace the appointed time, for my work and adventure."

"And if there should be war?" said she, regarding him with a searching look, not wholly, as he thought, without a shade of doubt.

"All the more reason," he replied. "There is such a scarcity of honest fighting nowadays, that it will be a treat to face the real thing in one's own person."

For one instant an answering smile lit up her face as she gazed at Massinger, who unconsciously drew himself up and raised his head, as though fronting an advancing column. She sighed, as she came forward, and lightly touching his shoulder, looked wistfully into his face. "You love war; it is in your blood. So do my people; it is the breath of their nostrils. My father, too, is a war-chief of the Ngapuhi, and fought with them in the old wars. But if you had ever seen Maoris in or after a battle, you would think you were in a land of demons, not men."

"A man can only die once. Your tribe, too, is on our side, is it not? I can't think the hostile natives will stand long before regular troops."

"Look at that bush," she said, pointing to a dense thicket of Koreao, where all sorts of horizontal climbers and clingers seemed struggling for the mastery, and into which the van of the little cortége had cast themselves, and gliding through, apparently without effort, had in part disappeared. "How do you think that a company of a regiment would advance or retreat, with Ngarara" (that amiable savage had just passed from view) "and a few hundreds of his tribe firing at you from behind it?"

"To tell truth, I think Ngarara would rather like it now, if he could get the chance; but I am a fair snapshot, and would try for first pull. However, we won't anticipate disagreeables. How far is Rotomahana? I am dying to see the terraces."

"You pakehas are always gay," she said. "Perhaps it is better to enjoy while we may. I wish I could do so. But our Tohunga has been prophesying, and his words have cast a shadow over my mind, which I vainly try to resist."

"But surely your education has taught you to despise superstitious fears?"

"My reason does so; but the senses revolt, strange as it may seem. I cannot get away from a dread of impending evil. My father, who has Highland blood in his veins, calls it the 'second sight.'"

"I have heard of it; and what did the seer foretell? Is he known to be a true prophet?" queried her companion.

"Wonderful as it may appear, he has been seldom wrong. This time he predicts war – bloody and doubtful. Our tribe, though sometimes defeated, is to be victorious. He counsels them to keep a straight path."

The next day's journey was over a different route. The forest, with its over-arching tree-tops and deep cool glades, lay behind them. They had entered upon a region of barren and desolate sand wastes, of which the neutral-tinted surface was varied by scarped over-hanging bluffs. In these, a red-ochreous conglomerate gave a weird and fantastic appearance to the landscape.

Halting towards evening, where the winding road by which they had been ascending appeared to decline towards a wide valley, Erena silently directed Massinger's attention to the far-stretching and varied view, adding, "You are about to descend into the land of wonders, and the kingdom of mysterious sights and sounds, with heaven above. As to below, what shall I say?"

He smiled as he answered, "It is only to look around, to convince one's self that we are on the border of a dread and unreal region. Look at that volcanic cone, splashed with shades of red, emitting steam from every point of its scarred sides and summit. And those snow-capped mountains, grand and awful in their loneliness, gazing, as one would dream over a ruined world, themselves awaiting only the final conflagration."

"Very awful, terrible – infernal even, it seems to me sometimes," said Erena. "I cannot help wondering how long it will be before these imprisoned fires burst through, and, in rending their way to upper air, destroy the heedless people who live so cheerfully on a mere crust. But we must get down into this valley of Waiotapu, where we camp for the night. There will be such a sight-seeing tomorrow in store for us, that we shall hardly be able to move in the evening. Blue lakes and green lakes will be the least of the marvels. When I was a child, I used to think there would be talking fish in them, like those of the 'Arabian Nights,' which stood on their tails in the frying-pan."

"What a dear old book that is!" exclaimed he; "how I used to delight in it as a boy! Now I think of it, this region has a good deal of the Sindbad the Sailor business about it. I shouldn't wonder if we came to a loadstone mountain, which would draw all our steel and iron articles into it, like the nails in Sindbad's ship! It would be lovely to see everything take flight through the air, from the axes and revolvers to the old mare's shoes."

The girl smiled at this extravagance, but relapsed into her expression of habitual seriousness as she answered, "Who knows but that we may want the revolvers? At any moment war may break out. We are like the Rotorua natives, I am afraid, walking on thin crust."

"I have skated on thin ice before now," he said, "but water and fire are different things. It seems uncanny to be on land where your walking-stick smokes if you poke it more than an inch into the soil. So this is the famous and sacred valley!"

"Here we are," said Warwick, who now joined them, "and I am not sorry. This sandy road takes it out of one ever so much more than the forest country. Our autumn sun, too, is fairly hot at midday. The Wahines felt it, carrying their loads up some of the hills."

"They seem to me to be given the heaviest packs," said Massinger, rather indignantly. "Why doesn't that hulking fellow Ngarara carry part of one at any rate?"

"Well, you see, he is a chief and has 'no back' – that is to say, he is absolved from bearing burdens. His person is sacred to that extent. I don't like him personally, but he is within his rights."

"I should like to kick him," said the Englishman; "he wants some of the nonsense taken out of him."

"I shouldn't advise any hasty act," said Warwick, looking grave. "He is a person of some consequence, and you would bring the whole tribe down upon us, as they would consider themselves insulted in his person; particularly now, as no one knows what may happen within a week or two. As for the women, poor things, they are used to it. They do much of the work of the tribe, and don't object to fighting on occasion."

"It is too true," said Erena. "I am always ashamed to see the tremendous loads they carry in the kumera season; and in the planting, digging, and weeding of those plantations that look so neat near the kaingas, they do far more than their share. I suppose women in Europe don't work in the fields?"

"Well," returned Massinger, rather taken aback, "I am afraid I must own that they do, now I come to think of it. They hoe turnip and potato fields, reap and bind in harvest time; and, yes, the fishermen's wives and the colliers' daughters work – pretty hard, too. In France and Germany I have often thought they worked harder than the men."

"Ah! I see," said Erena, with a flash of her large dark eyes, illumined with a sudden fire, which completely altered the expression of her countenance. "Men are alike in all countries. They take the easy work, under pretence of responsibility, and leave the drudgery to the poor women. In one respect, however, we have the advantage. We can speak and vote in the councils of the tribe."

"You don't say so! I should like to hear you speak in public, above all things. Have you ever done so?"

"Sometimes," said she, relapsing into seriousness; "and if certain events come to pass, you may hear me make more than one speech in the runanga before the year is out."

"How interesting!" he said, gazing at her with admiration, as she stood in classic pose, with fixed gaze, and every graceful outline denoting arrested motion.

"I thought it better to strike across to this valley of Waiotapu first," said Warwick, "though Erena was in favour of going straight to Rotorua. However, she now agrees with me, that you can have a foretaste of volcanic action here, and take the main Taupo road to the terraces, returning by Rotorua, which is the home of the hapu, or section of her tribe."

"It is, after all, the best route, perhaps," said she, smiling frankly. "You can reach the terraces easily now, and afterwards rest at Rotorua before returning to Auckland. There is also another reason."

"What is that?" inquired Massinger, as he saw the girl's face change, and her eyes once more become clouded over with the mysterious sadness which from time to time dimmed her brightest expression.

"I am nearly certain that there will be an outbreak – perhaps even war declared – before we return. In that case – "

"In that case I should join the first body of volunteers I could come at, or your own loyal tribe, if it remains so."

"I have every belief that Waka Nene will remain as true to your people as he was in the old war, when he fought against Heke, and did such good work in beating back Kawiti. My mother's brother, a noted chief, died fighting for your people. But this will bring the tribes nearer together; they may make common cause against the pakeha. It will be a fight to the death. Some of the friendly tribes may waver. I would advise your going to your own people without delay from Rotorua."

"And how about a guide? Warwick may not care to undertake the task in the face of – what may happen."

"In that case" – and as she spoke, her inmost soul seemed to look forth in high resolve through the lustrous eyes, now informed with the mystic fire of the sybil – "I will ensure you a guide who knows the secret paths even better than Warwick."

Massinger said no more. The countenance of Warwick wore a look of mingled doubt and admiration, after which he ordered the attendant natives to make the usual arrangements for a camp.

"We shall need no fire, that is one thing," he said, turning to the Englishman.

"How is that?" he inquired.

"Nature is good enough to contract for the cooking here, which is the least she can do before she blows them all up some fine day. Just watch these people directly."

As indeed he did, much marvelling.

First of all, two of the women cleared a space, about three feet long and two wide, in the warm earth; into this they placed a layer of stones, which they covered with leaves. Upon this were placed the pork, the kumeras, and some pigeons shot on the way, all of which were rapidly and satisfactorily cooked. The evening meal, so miraculously prepared, as it seemed, having been concluded, Erena retired with her female attendants, pleading the necessity for a night's rest to prepare them for the opening day of the Great Exhibition. The two men walked up and down, smoking the meditative pipe. But long after his companion had retired to rest, Massinger lay awake, unable to sleep amid the strange, almost preternatural, features of the locality, while the anticipation of a war between his countrymen and this stubborn and revengeful people taxed his brain with incessantly recurring thoughts.

What would be the first act in the drama? He thought of isolated families of the settlers, now living in apparent peace and security, abandoned to the cruelty of a remorseless enemy. Would the horrors of Indian warfare be repeated? Would a partial success, which, from their advantageous position, and the absence of any large body of regular troops, the natives were likely to gain, be avenged by merciless slaughter? In either case, what bloodshed, agony, wrongs irrevocable and unspeakable, were certain to ensue! What would be the outcome? He thought of the farmsteadings he had seen, with neat homesteads, garnered grain, contented hardy workers, their rosy-cheeked children playing amidst the orchards. Were these to be left desolate, burned, ravaged, as would be inevitable with all outside the line of defence? Then, again, the populous kaingas, with grave rangatiras and stalwart warriors; the merry chattering wahines, sitting amid their children when the day was over, much like other people's wives and children, enjoying far more natural comfort than the British labourers' families – were they also to be driven from their pleasant homes, starved, harried, pursued night and day by the avenger of blood? Like the heathen of old, dislodged by the chosen people with so little mercy? The carefully kept kumera plantations, so promising for another season, were they to be plundered or destroyed? The lines from Keble returned to his memory —

"It was a piteous sight, I ween, to mark the heathen's toil —The limpid wells, the orchards green, left ready for the spoil."

Was all this murder and misery to take place because the representatives of a great nation differed with a quasi-barbarous, but distinctly dignified, lord of the manor about the title to an area of comparatively small value when compared with the millions of acres of arable and pasture still for sale, undisputed?

A contention as to title by English law ousted the jurisdiction of magistrates in an assault case. Why should not this paltry squabble about an insignificant portion await an authoritative legal decision? No people apparently understood the deliberate verdict of a Court better than these Maoris. Delay, even protracted delay, would have been truly wise and merciful in view of the grisly alternative of war. Such a war, too, as it was likely to be!

However, though Erena and Warwick were confident of a fight, no official notice had yet reached them. It might yet be avoided, and so hoping, after hearing with increasing distinctness all manner of strange and fearful sounds, above, around, beneath, our traveller fell asleep.

The morning proved fine. As Massinger left his couch, the half-arisen sun was reluming a landscape neither picturesque nor alluring. Wild and wondrous it certainly was; upon such the eyes of the pakeha had never before rested. The elements had apparently been at play above and below the earth's surface, which showed signs of no common derangement. Rugged defiles, strangely assorted hillocks of differing size, colour, and elevation. A scarred volcanic cone poured out steam from its base upward, while, between the whirling mists, igneous rocks glinted, like red-hot boulders, in the morning sun. Near this strange mountain was a lake, the glittering green of which contrasted with the darkly red incrustations heaped upon its margin. Looking southward, a sense of Titanic grandeur was added to the landscape by a vast snow-covered range, on the hither side of which, he had been told, lay the waters of the historic Taupo – Taupo Moana, "The Moaning Sea."

CHAPTER VII

Strolling back to camp, his movements were quickened by observing that the rest of the party had finished the morning meal, and were only awaiting his arrival to commence the first day's sight-seeing. After a council of war, it was finally decided to remain in the valley for the rest of the day, making for Taupo and Rotomahana on the morrow.

"In this valley of Waiotapu," said Warwick, "you have a good idea, on a small scale, of Rotomahana and the terraces. The same sorts of pools are on view; you have also the feeling of being on the lid of a boiling cauldron, and can realize most of the sensations belonging to a place where you may be boiled alive or burnt to death at any moment."

"A romantic ending," replied Massinger; "but I don't wish to end my New Zealand career in such a strictly Maori fashion. What is one to do, to avoid incensing the Atua of this very queer region?"

"Be sure to follow me or Erena most carefully, and do not step away from the path, or into any water that you have not tried. One traveller did so, and, as it was at boiling heat, died next day, poor fellow! So now, let us begin. Do you see this yellow waterbasin? This is the champagne pool. For the champagne, watch this effect." Here a couple of handfuls of earth were thrown in. Thereupon the strange water commenced to effervesce angrily, the circles spreading until the outermost edges of the pool were reached. "The outlet, you see, is over that slope, and is known as the Primrose Falls. But we must not linger. Beyond that boiling lake, with the steam clouds hanging over it, lies a terrace, gradually sloping, with ripples in the siliceous deposit, finally ending in miniature marble cascades."

"All this is wonderful and astonishing, but it is only the beginning of the play. I shall reserve my applause until the last act. I have been in strange places abroad, but never saw so many different sorts of miracles in one collection. What are those cliffs, for instance, so white and glistening?"

"The Alum Cliffs, sparkling with incrustations of alum. You notice that they rise almost perpendicularly from the hot-water pools? In contrast, the colour of the surrounding earth varies from pale yellow to Indian red and crimson. Some of the crystals you see around are strongly acid. The pools are all sorts of colours: some like pots of red paint, others green, blue, pink, orange, and cream."

"Evidently Nature's laboratories. What she will evolve is as yet unknown to us. Let us hope it will be more or less beneficial."

"It is hard to say," replied Warwick, musingly. "There is a legend among the Maoris that, many generations since, this valley, now so desolate, was covered with villages, the soil being very productive; that the inhabitants displeased the local Atua, upon which he ordered a volcano in the neighbourhood to pour forth its fiery flood. An eruption followed, which covered the village many feet deep with the scoria and mud which, in a hardened state, you now see."

"Highly probable. I can believe anything of this sulphur-laden Valley of the Shadow. And did the mountain disappear also?"

"No! there he stands, three thousand feet high, quite ready, if one may judge from appearances, for another fiery shower. Let us hope he will not do it in our time. In the mean time, look at this Boiling Lake. Is not the water beautifully blue? And what clouds of steam! It is much the same, except in size, as the one above the Pink Terrace."

The day wore on as they rambled from one spot to another of the magical region.

"It is a city of the genii," said Massinger, as he watched the guide apply a match to one of a number of metallic-looking mounds, which promptly caught fire, and blazed until quenched. "Where in the world, except a naphtha lake, could one find such an inflammable rest for the sole of one's foot? I believe the place is one-half sulphur, and the other imprisoned fire, which will some day break forth and light up such a conflagration of earth, sky, and water, as the world has not seen for centuries. See here" – as, driving the end of his walking-stick into the crumbling earth, it began to smoke – "it is too hot to hold already."

The sun was low, as the little party, having lunched at a bungalow specially erected for tourists, took the homeward route.

"There is one more sight, and not the least of the series," said Warwick, as they approached a curious soot-coloured cone, from which, of course, steam ascended, and strange sounds, with intermittent groanings, made themselves heard.

"The powers be merciful to us mortals, who can but believe and tremble!" ejaculated Massinger. "What demon's kitchen is this?"

"Only a mud volcano," answered Warwick. "Let us climb to the top and look in."

The mound, formed by the deposit of dried mud, some ten or twelve feet high, was easily ascended. Open at the top, it was filled with a boiling, opaque mass of seething, bubbling mud. Ever and anon were thrown up fountain-like spurts, which turned into grotesque shapes as they fell on the rim of the strange cauldron. A tiny dab fell upon Erena's kaitaka. She laughed.

"It will do this no harm; but it might have been my face. A mud scald is long of healing."

"What an awful place to fall into alive!" said Massinger, as he gazed at the steaming, impure liquid. "Is it known that any one ever slipped over the edge?"

"More than one, if old tales are true," said Warwick; "but they were thrown in, with bound hands, after battle. It was a choice way of disposing of a favourite enemy. He did not always sink at once; but none ever came out, dead or alive."

"Let us go on!" said Erena, impatiently. "I cannot bear to think of such horrors. I suppose all nations did dreadful things in war."

"And may again," interposed Warwick. "These people were not worse than others long ago. The Druids, with their wicker cages filled with roasting victims, were as well up to date as my Maori ancestors. Luckily, such things have passed away for ever."

"Let us trust so," said Massinger, feelingly.

Erena made no answer, but walked forward musingly on the track which led in the direction of the camp.

"Though narrow, it appears to have been much used," he remarked.

"It is an old war-path," replied the guide. "When the Ngapuhi came down from Maketu on their raids, they mostly used this route. I am not old enough to have seen anything of Heke's war in '45. It was the first real protest against the pakeha. The natives were beginning to be afraid, very reasonably, that the white man would take the whole country. If the tribes had been united, they could have defied any force then brought against them, and driven your people into the sea."

"And why did they not make common cause?"

"The old story. Blood-feuds had embittered one tribe against another. Chiefs of ability and forecast, like Waka Nene and Patuone, his brother, saw that they must be beaten in the long run. They allied themselves with the British. They had embraced Christianity, and remained faithful to the end, fighting against the men of their own blood without the least regard to their common origin."